Last Saturday it was Day of Architecture and lots of amazing buildings were open to the public. We went to see the Van Nelle Fabriek.
Here's some wiki info:
The former Van Nelle Factory (Dutch: Van Nellefabriek) on the Schie river in Rotterdam, is one of the most important historic industrial buildings in the world.
The buildings were designed by architect Leendert van der Vlugt from the Brinkman & Van der Vlugt office in cooperation with civil engineer J.G. Wiebenga, at that time a specialist for constructions inreinforced concrete, and built between 1925 and 1931. It is an example of Nieuwe Bouwen, modern architecture in the Netherlands. It was commissioned by the co-owner of the Van Nelle company, Kees van der Leeuw, on behalf of the owners. Kees van der Leeuw and both company-directors, Matthijs de Bruyn and Bertus Sonneveld, were so impressed by the skills of Van der Vlugt that they respectively ordered 1928, 1930 and 1932 to design and build private houses for themselves in Rotterdam and nearby Schiedam. The totally renovated Sonneveld House now is an museum in the centre of Rotterdam, with yearly more as 30.000 visitors from all over the world.
In the 20th century it was a factory, processing coffee, tea and tobacco and later on additional chewing gum, cigarettes, instant pudding and rice. Currently it houses a wide variety of new media and design companies and is known as the Van Nelle Design Factory ("Van Nelle Ontwerpfabriek" in Dutch). Some of the areas are used for meetings, conventions and events.
Eric Gude, a Dutch specialist in conversion of former industrial sites, planned and organized 1997 this change of use for the Van Nelle factory and introduced 1999 Wessel De Jonge, an authority on the renovation of modern architecture, to coordinate the overall renovation, which began in the year 2000.
The Van Nelle Factory shows the influence of Russian constructivism. Mart Stam, who worked during 1926 as employee-designer at the Brinkman & Van der Vlugt office in Rotterdam, came in contact with the Russian Avant-Garde in 1922 in Berlin. In 1926 Mart Stam organized an architecture tour of the Netherlands for the Russian artist El Lissitzky and his wife Sophie Küppers, collector of avant-garde art. They visited Jacobus Oud, Cornelis van Eesteren, Gerrit Rietveld, and other artists. Sophie Küppers stated that Mart Stam spoke about 'his' factory during that trip. That happened to be the immediate cause for his dismissal
The Van Nelle Factory is a Dutch national monument (Rijksmonument) and is on the list of sites under consideration for the status of UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Justification of Outstanding Universal Value will be presented 2013 to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.
 |
| I didn't take a decent photo from the front. So I borrowed this photo from Wikipedia. |
 |
| The shape of the columns allow them to support a large amount of weight on floors as thin as 20cm! |
 |
| These magic looking tunnels were used for transporting the goods from one side to the other of the factory. |
 |
| Face! |
 |
| Panoramic (broken) view of the top tea room. |
 |
| Lawrence and Natalia do not pose. |
 |
| Round radiator. |
 |
| Giant stuffed toy. |
 |
| White beers at Historische Delfshaven. |
 |
| Summer, will you hide from us forever? |
